So just a few days ago at the Monaco Anime Game International Conferences 2017, Tetsuya Nomura showed off two screenshots of Final Fantasy VII Remake. The new screenshots showed off the games new updated UI. So with that, I decided it was time to do an updated analysis of the games combat.

Below you can see the combat screen with translations- 

Note- Menu System will change according to game Director.

The ATB bar-

In the picture above you can see the new updated UI. In it the point of interest is the ATB bar. In the shot you can see three notches by the ATB bar. This implies you can store up three levels of the bar for some purpose.  Another important aspect to look at is the fact the triangle button is by the ATB bar, which of course implies you need to press it to activate something. Now  if you read the text by the ATB triangle it says something like Intense cutting attack.

Now looking back at the previous trailer showing combat, the bar decreases when you are not attacking and increases when you land a hit. This really implies the bar is some sort of finisher for combos. Something else to be noted in the trailer is that we see three different finisher attacks from Cloud. Three notches, three attacks nice how they match isn’t it. Looking at the new screen it seems the triangle function adds up into different attacks, which is why the name appears by the bar.

The fact the bear decreases as you do not attack does imply that the combat is fully real time, and that the bar is a meter for some sort of special move. This is just further proven by the fact we see Cloud use three finisher moves in the initial combat trailer.

Beyond this, there is very little else to speculate without it being reaching and strange.

You can see the bar go down and up in the gif below( it is fast )-

 

What we were told-

• “I’ve put a lot of attention into the combat system, and it’s going to happen without interruption.”This can mean a few things. It could mean there is no menus to pause in battle, or it could mean you just attack enemies on the field without being taken to a battle area.Either way, we will likely find out soon.
• Your allies will not take damage from grenades. This is an odd bit, we don’t really know if it is meant as your allies not taking team damage. Or if it is meaning your allies are immune to grenade damage from enemies? This is a very vague part of the information.
• The Scenery is also partially destructible. So expect to destroy pipes, barrels and boxes.

So in short, it really seems the game is going to simply have a basic attack, and a button for some sort of specials. It is still unknown if the game will have shortcuts for magic or items, or if it will be menu based like Kingdom Hearts. For all we know at this point the combat systems could still be a mix. We also don’t know what L1/R1 do, but my guess is character switching.

Beyond these small bits we know nothing else of the Final Fantasy VII Remake’s combat.Hopefully Square allows Nomura to show us a gameplay video as he does want to. That way, the speculation can at least end and we can know what to expect from here.

Did you like the article? Well then feel free to check out our review of Final Fantasy VII!